by Jessica Beck
I patted my mother’s shoulder as we reached the second floor landing. “I know exactly what you mean. It hardly seems real.”
“I keep expecting her to pop up behind the next corner, telling us that it was all just some elaborate ruse,” Momma said sadly.
“The best thing we can do for Aunt Jean right now is to find out what really happened to her,” I said as I hid the journal in a safe place in the living room before we let anyone inside. “It’s what she wanted, and to be honest with you, it’s something that I need to do for myself.”
“I agree,” she said, her hand poised on the front doorknob. “Are you ready for this?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I said. “Go on and answer it.”
Momma opened the door just as the bell rang again.
“May we help you?” Momma asked the older woman standing there. She wore slacks and a matching top, but her clothes weren’t what stood out about her. The lady looked extremely nervous as she stood there, and she kept glancing over her shoulder as she spoke to us, as though she was expecting a rather unpleasant surprise to spring up on her.
“I’m Sylvia Reynolds,” she said, making eye contact for just a moment.
“You were Aunt Jean’s best friend,” I said as I extended a hand. She took it briefly, and then shook Momma’s hand as well.
“We were close,” Sylvia said.
“Won’t you come in?” Momma asked.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t stay,” she said as she looked behind her yet again.
“Were you expecting someone to join you?” I asked her, curious about her behavior.
“What? No, of course not,” she said, trying her best now to keep her focus on us. “I just had to stop by and offer you both my condolences. I’m so sorry about what happened to Jean.”
This was the only eyewitness that we knew of who’d witnessed one of the attempts on my aunt’s life, and I didn’t want to let her go without discussing it with her. “We really would like to talk to you.”
“I would if I could, but I can’t,” she said as she started to back away off the porch. “I just wanted you to know how sorry I was.”
She was two steps off the porch when I started to follow her. “Sylvia, you were there when the truck almost hit my aunt, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t see a thing,” she said, as though she were repeating a memorized line.
“You might think so, but you might have caught something that you didn’t realize was significant,” I said in as soothing a voice as I could manage. “We’re not asking for much, just a few minutes of your time.”
She paused for a moment, and then Sylvia said emphatically, “I told you, I have to go.”
“Where are you going that’s so urgent that you can’t attend my sister’s funeral?” Momma asked, having followed us out onto the sidewalk.
“I have to go,” she said again, and short of tackling her to the ground, we had no choice but to let her go.
As Momma and I walked back up the steps to the house, I said, “Something has that woman spooked big-time.”
“She seemed a little distracted, didn’t she?”
“Momma, she was practically jumping out of her skin. There’s something that she wasn’t telling us, that’s for sure.”
“So, you don’t believe her pressing engagement somewhere else, either?”
“She’s scared, plain and simple. I only wish I knew why,” I said as we walked back into my aunt’s house.
“Well, she clearly wasn’t going to tell us, but it confirms our belief that what happened to my sister was no accident.”
“At least Sylvia thinks so,” I said.
“You’re not having second thoughts about what happened to Jean, are you?” Momma asked me.
“No, I believe that someone really wanted her dead. I just can’t imagine why, and one of our best chances of finding out just ran away.”
Momma and I were still pondering Sylvia’s odd behavior when the doorbell rang again. When we opened the front door, we found a stout, rather heavyset woman with short, powerful little legs in her fifties. Even as we answered, she had one finger pressed against the bell. Her dark hair was streaked with broad bands of white, as though the look was intended and not given to her by nature. “Oops. Sorry. Wasn’t sure that you heard me,” she said gruffly, and then she offered us a casserole dish covered in foil. “This is for you.”
“Thank you,” Momma said automatically as she took the offering. “I’m sorry, but you look very familiar to me. Have we met?”
The woman smiled, showing off her sharp and pointed little teeth. “Four years ago, I dropped by to return Jean’s rake when you were visiting. It seemed that I’d lost mine, but I finally found it. Would you care to guess where it was?”
“Under a pile of leaves?” I asked, being more than a little sarcastic despite the circumstances.
“Now, aren’t you a wonder,” the woman said in amazement. “You must be Suzanne. I’ve seen plenty of your photographs. You have to be.”
There had been a few framed shots of me in the house, so that didn’t entirely surprise me. “I’m afraid that you have us at a disadvantage,” I said.
She shook her head in mock disbelief. “Where are my manners? I’m Anna Albright, Jean’s next-door neighbor. The two of us have been friends for years.”
Funny, but I’d never heard my aunt mention this woman at all, at least not by name. Then I realized who she must be. Anna Albright’s striking resemblance to a badger because of her chosen hairstyle and her body type made it clear that I’d heard her mentioned quite a few times in the past after all. The nickname my aunt had used to refer to her suddenly made complete sense. Not only did she uncannily resemble the animal, but according to what I’d heard about her, Aunt Jean had also called her the badger because when she wanted something, she was relentless. From what my late aunt had told me, this woman had been after her for years to sell her home to her. “You wanted to buy this house, didn’t you?”
Anna looked at me guiltily. “What can I say? I fell in love with it the second I saw it as a child. Your sister wasn’t about to budge while she was alive, though.” She paused, and then added, “You wouldn’t happen to be interested in selling the place now that she’s gone, would you?”
“I hardly think this is an appropriate time to discuss it,” Momma said frostily.
“Of course. No, you’re right. Sorry. I just wanted to ask, stake my claim, as it were.” Anna backed up a few steps before she added, “I’ll go now. Leave you both in peace. If you need anything, don’t forget that I’m right next door,” she said as she pointed to the small cottage just down the hill a hundred feet or so.
“Thanks for stopping by,” I said to her as she fled. As the woman waddled away, she began to hurry as the sky darkened and the first of what felt like many raindrops began to fall.
“What an odd bird she was,” I said to Momma once we were back inside the house.
“Odd indeed,” my mother said. “I can see why my sister called her the badger. Do you suppose she adopted that hair style on purpose?”
“I can’t imagine why she would,” I said.
Momma frowned for a moment before she said, “She’s probably soaked by now.”
“We could have invited her inside,” I said, “but it wasn’t raining then, was it?”
“No, but it’s coming down hard now,” Momma said as we both looked out into the growing dark skies. “I’m just glad that we have a solid roof over our heads.”
“What should we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit hungry. What do you suppose she brought us?” Momma asked as she lifted a corner off the foil.
“It appears to be some type of casserole,” I said, though from what was exposed, I couldn’t begin to guess what its basic ingredients might be.
“What do you think, Suzanne? Should we risk it, or should I go into town for takeout?”
“Town sounds better
to me,” I said. “Why don’t I go with you?”
Momma frowned. “I hardly need an escort. Suzanne, I know that you believe in the buddy system, but no one’s going to attack me if I drive into town and get us something to eat.”
“Aren’t you worried about me being here in this big old house all by myself?” I asked her with a smile.
“You’re a big girl. I’d be more concerned by anyone foolish enough to try to break in. I think you’ll be fine while I’m gone. Besides, I thought you might like to start reading Jean’s journal to look for clues, and I’m not sure I want to be here when you start digging into my sister’s life.”
“But you’re okay with me doing it, right?” I asked her with real concern.
“I’m fine with it, as long as I don’t have to read it myself,” Momma said. “That I just could not take. How about you? Are you sure that you’re up for it? I know that it’s going to be painful for you to do it.”
“It probably will be, but I’ll just keep reminding myself that it’s all for a good cause. They only way we’re going to be able to find her killer is to hear what she had to say about her list of suspects.”
“Take notes on anything that you find interesting, and you can share it with me when I get back.”
“You know that you’re going to get soaked out there, don’t you,” I said as the rain began to intensify.
“At least there’s no thunder or lightning,” Momma said, as a distant flash of light was followed ten seconds later with a low rumbling that washed toward us.
“Not here, maybe, but it could easily be on its way,” I said.
“Then I’ll hurry.” Momma grabbed my aunt’s umbrella, put on a brave face, and then she said, “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Two minutes after she was gone, I began to regret not going with her after all.
The house had been okay when Momma had been there with me, but now that the storm was intensifying and it was growing dark as well, the circumstances weren’t quite so amenable.
I decided to start reading the journal to take my mind off the storm and the fact that I was alone, but I hadn’t even cracked it open when my cellphone rang.
I thought it might be Momma, stranded at the side of the road, but to my delight, it was Jake, instead.
“Hey, there, stranger,” I said. “How are you?”
“Suzanne, I just got your message,” Jake said. “I’m so sorry about your aunt.” I’d called my boyfriend right after I’d found out about Aunt Jean, but he was working on a case out of town, and that meant that I didn’t always have immediate contact with him. Sometimes a voicemail was as good as it got, even though I would have preferred talking to him directly. Shoot, I’d prefer more than that. I’d love to have had his arms wrapped around me at the moment, but I might as well have wished for a pot of gold for as much good as it would do me.
“Thanks for calling. How’s your case looking?”
“Never mind that. Tell me how you’re holding up.”
“I’m okay. Momma and I are already in Maple Hollow. We’re going to be staying at my aunt’s old house for the next three days.” At that moment, there was another flash of lightning, brighter than it had been before, and the rumbling came sooner this time.
“Wow, that sounds like you’ve got yourself some storm,” Jake said. “Listen, I tried to get time off to be with you, but I just can’t do it. We found another victim an hour ago. Suzanne, I want to be there for you, but I can’t walk away from this. It’s personal now. This maniac is taunting us, and I need to get him myself.”
“I understand completely,” I said. “You need to keep investigating and catch this guy before he can kill again.”
“Actually, I’m beginning to think that it might be a she.”
Jake didn’t usually track down women killers. “Then you need to be extra careful.”
“Why’s that? A killer is a killer in my book,” Jake said.
“It’s been my experience that women can be much colder than men.”
He sighed, and then he said, “I always watch my step, no matter who I’m tracking. Is there anything I can do for you?”
I hadn’t told Jake about my aunt’s suspicions that someone might be trying to kill her before she’d died, and I wasn’t sure this was the right time to share that particular bit of information. After all, he had his own troubles, so why should I add to them? “No, just hearing your voice makes me feel better.”
There was another strike of lightning then, much closer this time, and the thunder came on much sooner than it had before, a deafening roar that hurt my ears. “Listen, I’d better get off the phone. Thanks for calling. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, and then, just as we hung up, I heard a strange noise coming from outside, something that didn’t sound anything like it belonged to the storm.
After opening the door and calling out to no avail, I went back inside, only to hear a new and even stranger noise coming from the attic.
And that’s when it all really started to become real to me.
I was all alone inside a house that might be holding more dangers than I’d ever imagined.
Another noise echoed outside just as the lights were extinguished, and that’s when my earlier mentioned moments of fear and uncertainty occurred.
I opened the front door again, despite the pounding rain, and saw Momma racing toward the house, a bag clutched in one hand and the umbrella in the other.
“It’s miserable out there,” she said as she tried to shake the umbrella off before bringing it in. “I see the lights are out. Well, I was warned that might happen.” Then she caught a glimpse of my face in the lightning. “Suzanne, are you okay?”
“I think something’s in the attic trying to get out,” I said in a strained voice.
“We’ll just see about that, won’t we?” Momma said as she put the food down on a nearby table, retrieved a mini-flashlight from her purse, and led the way upstairs.
Suddenly I was a lot braver than I had been a few moments ago now that I had my mother with me.
Between the two of us, I was sure that we could handle just about anything.
Chapter 8
As I put my hand on the doorknob of the attic, I turned to Momma and whispered, “Are you ready?”
“I am,” she said calmly.
I took a deep breath and then I opened the door, fully expecting someone to jump out at us.
Only there was nothing there.
Then we both heard the noise again. My hand instinctively went to the light switch, but the power was still off, so of course, nothing happened.
Momma shined her flashlight in the direction where the sound was coming from, and I saw a tree branch through the window outlined in her beam. As we watched, the wind howled fiercely again, and the branch seemed to want to break through the window and attack us.
“It’s nothing after all, see?” Momma asked me.
“I don’t know if I’d call it nothing,” I said, “but at least it’s not out to get us.”
“Suzanne, we’re safe.”
“From that, at least,” I said.
My mother smiled brightly as the power suddenly came back on. “There, now isn’t that better?” Momma asked as she shut off her flashlight. “I hope you’re hungry. I bought enough food for four people.”
“That’s good, because I’m starving,” I admitted as we turned off the light and headed back downstairs.
“What did you get?” I asked as we walked into the kitchen.
“There weren’t many options. Maple Grove is no April Springs.”
“I don’t even care. I withdraw the question. I’ll eat whatever you could find.”
Momma smiled. “I thought you might. How does pepper steak and rice sound to you?”
“Delicious,” I said. “Is that what you got?”
She laughed. “Suzanne, why in the world would I ask you how it sounded if I hadn’t gotten it
?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re just toying with me.”
Momma reached into the large bag and began to pull out white cardboard containers. “Let’s dig in before this gets cold.”
“I’m so hungry I’d eat it frozen on a stick like a Popsicle if that were my only choice.”
After the first bite, I nodded. “Hey, that’s not bad at all. Pretty good, as a matter of fact.”
“I suspect that it’s better than Anna Albright’s casserole.”
“I don’t see how you could be wrong about that. It’s got to be a pretty low bar,” I said, and then I took another bite. I’d foregone the chopsticks my mother had offered, preferring a good old-fashioned fork, but my mother handled her chopsticks with casual grace. “How do you do that?”
“With style and grace, just as I do everything else,” Momma said with a smile. “Actually, Jean taught me when we were younger. She loved trying new things. I’m going to miss her more than I can express.”
“I once read that someone said the older you get, the more people you lose that you love. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”
Momma thought about it for a few moments, and then she said, “It does put things in perspective. Seizing the day is good advice for just about anyone. I will say that my sister and I enjoyed a great many years being family. I always thought of her as more of a friend than as a sister.”
“She was awesome,” I agreed. Then I held up my water glass and offered a toast. “To Jean, one truly wonderful lady.”
Momma frowned. “Suzanne, you know that it’s bad luck to toast with water.”
“I’ll risk it if you will,” I said with a grin.
“Why not? To Jean,” she echoed, and we clinked our glasses together.
After we ate, Momma said, “While I was waiting on our food, I had an idea about how to approach my sister’s journal.”
“Have you changed your mind? Do you want to read it yourself now?” I’d been looking forward to studying it myself, but I figured that my mother had the right to claim that privilege for herself if that was what she wanted.